1. a female parent of a child or animal: His mother and father are both doctors.mother of two/three etc (=mother of two/three etc children) Janet is a full-time teacher and a mother of two. the relationship between mother and child Goodnight, Mother. Mother said they’d met at university. If food is scarce, the mother will feed the smaller, weaker chicks.mother cat/bird/hen etc (=an animal that is a mother)

2. be (like) a mother to somebody to care for someone as if you were their mother: She’s like a mother to them. If they need anything she always helps out.

3. like a mother hen if someone behaves like a mother hen, they try to protect their children too much and worry about them all the time

4. learn/be taught something at your mother’s knee to learn something when you are a very young child: the prayers which he had been taught at his mother’s knee

5. the mother of somethinga) the origin or cause of something: Westminster is known as ‘the mother of parliaments’.Necessity is the mother of invention (=people have good ideas when the situation makes it necessary).b)informal a very severe or extreme type of something, usually something bad: I woke up with the mother of all hangovers.

6. spoken especially American English something very large and usually very good: a real mother of a car

II. mother2 verb [transitive] [Word Family: noun: mother, motherhood, mothering; adjective: motherly, motherless; verb: mother] to look after and protect someone as if you were their mother, especially by being too kind and doing everything for them: I don’t like being mothered!